Breaking the Habit
by sidorak95
Summary: Sam is caught using drugs to deal with the stress of the job and is forced to quit, losing everything and everyone he loves. The rest of the team try to save him, but the only one who can save Sam is himself, and he won't believe in himself. Can they save his lost soul?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So, recently finished watching Flashpoint and I'm so emotional that it's over but I really wanted to write a Sam-centric fanfic so here it is hopefully it's not too bad. It's unbeta'd so I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes, although I tried to catch all of them.**

**This is probably set somewhere in Season Five, except Sam and Jules aren't in a relationship. So yeah, most of this is going to be about Sam trying to break a drug addiction. Please read and review!**

* * *

_I don't know what's worth fighting for_  
_Or why I have to scream._  
_I don't know why I instigate_  
_And say what I don't mean._  
_I don't know how I got this way_  
_I'll never be alright_  
_So I'm breaking the habit,_  
_I'm breaking the habit_  
_Tonight_

- Breaking the Habit - Linkin Park

* * *

"Look, I can explain."

"Explain what, Sam?" Ed shouted angrily, waving the crumpled papers in front of his face. "Explain the fact that your drug tests came back positive?"

From the corners of his eyes, Sam watched the rest of the team look up in shock. All conversation stopped, and he forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat.

"Listen, Ed, can we do this somewhere else?"

"Why? This concerns the whole team, not just you. They have a right to know, don't you think?"

And then in a soft, almost pleading tone.

"Please, Sam, look me in the eye, and tell me that these are wrong. Look me in the eye, Sam."

Sam looked up, but he couldn't seem to meet the other man's eyes.

"I-I wish I could. I'm sorry, Ed."

"Why? You know what it does to you. You know that it's prohibited."

Sam attempted to move past his teammate, but despite the fact that Sam was an inch taller, Ed had had him cornered.

"I'll hand in my resignation later. Please, not now, Ed. Not now."

"Why?" Ed whispered, his voice cracking. "I've- we've known you for years now. Is there a problem at home? Family?"

Sam smiled bitterly, though the others could see how forced and harsh it was.

"I wish. No, it's nothing at home."

"Then what is it? We want to help, Sam," Jules asked, moving closer. He could see the worry and concern on her face, along with the anger and sympathy. This was the last thing he wanted. For his team to feel sorry for him.

"No. Don't say that. Stop acting like you're negotiating with me. I'm not a subject. And if you cared, you would've noticed. You would've noticed before it got to this point."

He could see the hurt immediately register in all of their eyes. He knew he'd feel guilty for that later, but right now, all he needed was to get away. He didn't want them to know how pathetic he'd become, how helpless he was. A lamb ready for slaughter.

"Oh, I do care, Sam. If you think that I don't, then you are sorely mistaken. Ed cares. Spike cares. Leah cares. Boss cares. So you tell me right now."

"You don't want to hear it, Jules. I promise you."

"The hell I don't! I want to know, and I want to fucking know right now!" Jules yelled, stabbing the air with her finger. Sam could see a brief flash of something between Greg and Ed as Ed placed a soothing but restraining hand on Jules' wrist.

The bleak smile promptly faded from Sam's mouth as it was replaced by his own anger.

"Fine. You want to know? It's this job. All of you think you have it so terrible because boo hoo, you failed to save someone. Guess who does most of the shooting? Ed, you know what I'm talking about."

"Sam, I know what you're going through-"

"No, you don't Ed. You think you do, but you don't. You have people to turn to. You haven't killed nearly as many people as me. You wouldn't understand. You couldn't."

Sam felt guilty for a brief second at the look of pain on his friend's face, but he used it as a distraction to slip away. He needed to be alone.

"Sam, wait-"

* * *

The loud, blaring sounds of the traffic were a welcome escape for Sam. It distracted him and helped him forget. Forget the people, the faces, the hurt, the lies, and the pain. Helped him forget how he spent his whole life killing people. _Murderer. Murderer._

He had nowhere to escape, really. The black shards of depression seemed to follow him everywhere, each victim's face reflected inside each shiny, jagged piece. Haunting him, eyes piercing his gaze. They followed him everywhere. Judging him.

_How could you do this to me?_

_Monster!_

_I was only protecting my child._

The only way to forget was to forgive himself, and he couldn't do that. He couldn't excuse himself from killing Matt. He was supposed to be an officer of the law, not a judge, but wasn't he judging people when he killed them? Judging what was too far over the line by a book. A book, filled with unforgiving words, that told him when to kill.

Nothing ever helped. He tried forgiving himself. Talking to himself. Doing something, anything, but remember because it hurt too much. He still had the scars where he cut himself, but he stopped after a while because the pain made it easier to bear for a little, but then the truth came crashing down on him like ocean waves, mercilessly pounding him until he had nothing left to give. Nothing.

Then, by chance, Sebastion had contacted him. He did drugs. He was far from famous but wasn't a nobody either. Drugs in exchange for keeping the SRU away.

Sam could still remember that day. He would've arrested him right then and there, but there was something enticing about drugs. Weren't they supposed to help you forget? To get rid of the past, the pain?

An especially loud car horn shook him out of his reveries, and he cursed himself for getting trapped in memory lane. There was no point dwelling on the past. The more he thought, the harder it was to deal with.

Stupid. Stupid. Why would you let yourself get caught? You knew they took blood tests, his mind whispered. You knew. You knew.

And that made it so much worse.

So Sam hurried across the street to his sparsely decorated apartment and did what he had done for the past half year.

He lost himself again.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So first off, I'm going to apologize for taking so long to write this. I had it all done on my iPad but the stupid thing didn't save so I had to redo it, and then I actually got a beta this time around! So hopefully the grammar is much better.**

**Also, I'm going to apologize for switching tenses as well. I have no clue whatsoever why I wrote the first chapter in present tense, as I'm usually only comfortable with past so the rest of this is going to be in past tense and I'll be having my beta help me switch the first chapter and fix the grammar and stuff too.**

**So without further ado, here's chapter two! Please read and review!**

* * *

It's broad daylight outside, but it's still dark inside Sam's apartment. For him, anyways.

His world around him was gone, shattered. He could pretty much say that he no longer had a job, considering how it went yesterday. He broke the trust of his team, and his father was bound to hear about it sooner or later. If his test results weren't grounds for expulsion, his father would make sure they were. He was always going on about how Sam should quit and join the army again.

Yep, he was so screwed, and his world was collapsing on top of itself. The only things he could see clearly were the nightmares, the faces of the people he killed. Everyone else claimed he was saving people, but he was doing a pretty shitty job if all he did was shoot people, right? He couldn't negotiate anything or relate to people. "Oh yes, I shot my best friend on accident. I know what it feels like."

All he was was a trigger happy moron.

Shooting people didn't take skill. Look through the scope, aim for the head, and pull the trigger. That's why they left the task of negotiating to those who actually had half a mind to do anything. And then there were those like Jules and Ed who could do both. There were reasons why he wasn't ever asked to negotiate. It never ended well. Like with Darren Kovacs.

Really, he didn't know how he got a spot on the SRU, considering all he knew was how to kill. Though he supposed it had something to do with his dad, the great General "Badass" Braddock. He had opposed it from the beginning. Claimed that Sam couldn't make a difference there. Sam had disagreed at first. He could save people. But it only took a few years for him to realize that he wasn't saving anyone. Everyone else was, but not him.

He guessed it was for better that he was no longer on the team.

* * *

"Can someone explain to me what the hell is going on?" Greg asked heatedly, looking concerned.

"This. This is what's going on, Greg," Ed said, shaking the papers in his hand at him impatiently.

Greg snatched them out of Ed's hand, glancing at him irritably. "Calm down, Eddy."

"Did you just tell me to calm down?" Ed asked incredulously. "No. No. I won't calm down. Why would Sam do this? I thought he trusted us. His team."

"He was never one to open up about his feelings," Jules said, butting in. "Heck, I don't even know much about him or his family. I doubt any of you really know him either."

There was a moment of silence as the team digested this.

"Still," Ed said at last, breaking the silence, "he knew he had us. Why would he turn to drugs?"

"Did he really know he had us to help him though?" Spike added.

"What are you implying, Spike?" Ed asked, his eyes narrowing.

"I'm saying that all of us have been so occupied with our own problems that we haven't bothered to give a thought to anyone else on the team."

Another moment of silence.

"Um, Boss?" Winnie called, shattering the silence.

"What is it, Winnie?"

"There's a warrant that just came in. It's for Sam's apartment. Just thought you might want to know."

"What?" Ed asked in disbelief, walking over and ripping the warrant out of the printer. He flicked through the pages rapidly, eyes narrowing when he saw the name at the bottom.

"Who requested it?" Greg asked, the anger evident in his voice, despite his attempt to stay calm.

"Blair Kowalski from the SIU."

"Of course," Greg said, sighing.

"What the hell is his problem anyways? If you ask me, he's trying to hinder us rather than help. Every time we see him, he's trying to break up the team or something."

"He's just doing his job, Ed," Spike broke in.

"No, he's right, Spike," Greg said, his face dark. "He applied to join the SRU a while back. Didn't qualify. So he joined the SIU and has been holding a grudge against Team One ever since."

"Unbelievable!" Jules spat, looking disgusted.

"If they find something in his apartment..." Ed trailed off, leaving the consequences to the imagination of the team.

"When's the search taking place?" Jules asked, turning towards Ed.

"Um," he began distractedly, skimming through the document, "at two."

Jules glanced at her watch. "That's in ten minutes. We can do something still."

"But that's not in our jurisdiction," Spike protested.

"Does it matter?" Leah broke in, speaking for the first time. "If we're half the friends we say we are, we would do it for him in a heartbeat."

"Leah's right," Ed said, glancing at the clock. "Come on guys, we have a teammate to save."

He began to stride towards the garage but then stopped to look at Greg. "Boss, you in on this or not? We'll say we did it without your permission if we get caught."

Greg stared at him unbelievingly. "Are you kidding me Ed? There's nowhere in the world I'd rather be. Nothing I'd rather do."

The team hesitated slightly to smile at the quote before rushing to go save their friend.

* * *

"Is this it?" Ed asked, looking up at the apartment building.

"I think so," Jules replied, looking down at the map on her phone. "It's hard to tell."

"I'm gonna go ahead and say it is, considering the fact that there's a SIU van and police car right there," Spike pointed out, worry etched into his face.

Ed muttered a colourful word. "Alright, chances are, they're searching the place right now. In that case, I can try to distract them while one of you sees if there are any - "there was a small pause as Ed wrapped his head around the fact, swallowing a lump in his throat - "drugs in the place."

However, it was clear that they were too late.

"Sam!" Jules exclaimed, watching in horror as she spotted Sam being led out the entrance by none other than Blair Kowalski. Sam looked up in surprise.

"What are you guys doing here?" Blair asked irately. "Aren't you supposed to be on duty?"

"We came here to protect one of our own," Ed growled. "What are the charges?"

"Possession," he replied, holding up a bag stuffed full of white powder.

"Aw, Sam!" Greg shouted, burying his hands in his face. Sam looked the other way.

"With that amount, he's gonna be going away for a while," Spike whispered in muted horror.

"So is this what your big plan is?" Jules demanded, turning to Blair, her voice laced with malice. "Arrest misguided SRU officers instead of the drug gangs and leaders? Why? Are you still bitter you didn't get in SRU? Good, because no one would want scum like you anyways."

Leah placed a comforting, yet restricting hand on Jules' shoulder.

"Don't you tell me how to do my job, Officer Callaghan," Blair spat, stabbing with his finger at her. "I'm tempted to stack up even more charges and write a report about Team One now."

Jules glared at him with all the hate she could muster but said nothing.

"Now come on," Blair growled at Sam, "let's go before your little friends here do anything stupid."

"Don't worry Sam! We'll get you out!" Spike called, earning a glare from the SIU agent handling Sam.

Sam turned his head around in surprise.

And for the first time that day, he felt a glimmer of hope.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: So, I would normally add a bunch of excuses about school and stuff but I'm just going to say that I'm lazy and my editor is as well, so let's just leave it at that. Sorry for the delay.**

**We just finished state testing and I only have finals until summer so hopefully I can crank out chapters a lot quicker soon!**

**Anyways, please read and review!**

* * *

It was a drab morning in the SRU headquarters. Sam's arrest hadn't come easily, and the pouring rain and crackling thunder outside didn't help either. The other teams had heard about it, and Team One could feel them whispering and muttering behind the team's back.

Jules gritted her teeth as she pretended to ignore the whispering she could hear so obviously behind her. She pounded faster on the treadmill, trying to lose her surroundings. _Thump, thump, thump. _She focused on the sound of her footsteps as she breathed deeply, muscles groaning.

The blaring sounds of the alarm broke her concentration, and she had to grab onto the handles of the machine to steady herself.

"Team Two, hot call!" Winnie was yelling, and Jules watched as the only other team in the building raced for the garage to go protect the peace.

"About time," Jules muttered angrily, sending a scowl in their direction. "Could you guys hear them whispering? At least make it less obvious."

"Ignore them, Jules. They're not worth your time or anger," Ed advised, wiping his face on his towel. "Speaking of which, has anyone heard anything about Sam?"

"They're holding him without bond," Spike scowled, looking angry.

"What?" Ed asked incredulously. "Murderers get off the chopping block by paying a few bucks, but they won't set a bond for him because he did a few drugs? Unbelievable."

"They said something about him being an SRU and how the rules should be stricter for him just because of that, which is pure bullshit," Spike spat.

"Yes, because SRU officers aren't human and don't make mistakes," Jules added sarcastically, talking to no one in particular.

Greg joined in. "Maybe I can talk to-"

He broke off as the alarm sounded again. "Team One, hot call! There's been a riot at Westside Prison Facilities. Looks like you'll have your hands full. Half the city's officers are being dispatched as well as the riot police," Winnie called, grimacing.

Jules groaned. Exactly what she needed this morning, a long day at a prison. Perfect.

"Wait, guys," Spike yelled, interrupting the chorus of moans across the room. "Isn't that where Sam is?"

"I thought he was being held at the Eastside Prison," Leah said, speaking for the first time.

"No," Spike said, shaking his head. "They moved him last night due to overcrowding or something."

No one else said anything, but there was a sense of despair and renewed urgency in the air as the team ran to change.

A tall, blonde lady in a police uniform approached them with her hand outstretched. "Are you Sergeant Parker?" She asked, stopping in front of Greg.

"I am," he confirmed, shaking her hand. "And you are?"

"Commander Jennings with the riot police. Good to see you here."

"Likewise. So, what's the story?"

"We don't know much yet," she said, shaking her head. "There was a riot earlier in one of the cell blocks. They started turning on one prisoner. Thankfully, we managed to shut down that section of the prison before they could reach any other cell blocks. Several confirmed dead and more are injured."

"Do we have eyes in?"

"No, they shattered all the cameras. We do have footage from when the riot first started though, if you'd like to see that."

"That'd be great, Commander. We also need to use the prison headquarters for command. And the rest of my team needs to scout the cell block."

"Of course. Anything you need. I'll have a guard show your team the way."

"Creepy, isn't it?" Spike asked to no one in particular, eying the gloomy grey buildings that made up the prison. The rain had let up, but the sky was still overcast, leaving a dark and miserable atmosphere. It was also eerily silent outside. Normally, there would be the sound of inmates out and about in the exercise yard, but it was dark and deserted.

Jules shivered slightly in response. "I hate prisons. They scare the crap out of me."

"I just hope Sam isn't involved in this," Leah muttered, looking up at the dreary building.

"He better not be. Or I'll skin him alive," Jules said darkly.

No one bothered to voice out loud what they were all thinking.

_If he's still alive._

* * *

Jules couldn't help but glance over her back nervously at the inmates of the prison cell as they walked through the cell block. They jeered at Ed, Spike, Leah and her, shouting various vulgar words. They rattled the bars of their cells, which unnerved Jules even more than she already was.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, they reached the cell block where the riot had taken place. It was separated by a gate of thick iron bars, but there was no one else in sight. Jules couldn't help but wince involuntarily as she spotted a trail of blood and what appeared to be a dead body in an orange jumpsuit lying near the bars. She couldn't see his face, but to her immense relief, the hair was black, not blonde.

"How large is this cell block?" Ed asked, peering through the bars.

"It's about 500 feet long, sir."

"Any windows or exits besides this one?"

"There's a gate on the opposite side and a few windows, but they're all barred over, sir."

Ed was about to ask for the floor plans when he was interrupted by Greg over the headset.

"Guys, I've just viewed the security footage from right before the incident, and well, it doesn't look good."

Spike frowned, hearing the hesitation in Greg's voice.

"What's wrong, Boss?" He asked, noticing the hesitation.

"Well, see for yourself. I'm sending the video to your PDAs."

The sound of velcro tearing apart echoed as the team took out their PDAs.

Jules squinted at the small screen, trying to comprehend it. The prisoners were walking about, for a stretch break she imagined. The gate she was standing at now rose as a guard walked in, someone trailing behind him.

It took her a second to recognize the familiar face in the jumpsuit.

"Sam..." she whispered, eyes widening in shock.

Then all hell broke loose.

The inmates in the video suddenly all seemed to stop and point at Sam. The guard started to back out but was too slow. Suddenly, she couldn't see anything as the screen transformed into a flurry of writhing bodies fighting. She watched in dread as an inmate took the now unconscious guard's gun and aimed it.

The inmate aimed and pulled the trigger, and a bullet tore into the chest of another inmate.

_Into the chest of Sam._


End file.
